I Clean. So I am.

I love cleaning, putting things away and organizing. It’s been a bit of an obsession since childhood and though it’s now difficult to obsess about it constantly, I still need an organised space to be able to work, think, eat, sleep and even be in peace.

Stationary stores are just as tempting for me as a shoe store (or one that sells bags, or silvery jewelry or clothes or…) and it’s tough for me to walk out of one without buying something. Most people buy notebooks. But what temps me the most are not the pretty notebooks. It is the files for my various documents, the multicolored pins, the cute little post-its, the markers, the highlighters, the pens…anything that helps me be more organised.

Back home, I can spend a good 30 minutes putting away the purchases or putting them to use immediately! Nothing distresses me more than a few hours spent organizing my papers, highlighting and marking important content and putting things away in appropriate files & boxes. My need to tidy up doesn’t stop with my papers. Papers take a while to get messed up. The cupboard though needs much more regular attention, for I need my clothes to be organised in a particular order, depending on their type, color and size! And then there are my many jewelry boxes… A couple of hours lost in the depths of my cupboard and I emerge feeling like I could conquer the world.

My mania doesn’t just stop there. It spills over to the more intensive and manual type of cleaning as well. It’s not at all strange for me to spend Sunday morning surrounded by cleaning equipment, scrubbing the kitchen cupboards and lining shelves with old newspapers. Such a joy it is to bring down the curtains for a wash and put up a different set or to hang out the freshly washed linen perfumed lightly with the fabric conditioner. (Yes, yes there are quite a few people who use those things you see in the supermarket.)

Why do people complain about household chores? What other activity allows you to work out the anger in your system (scrub out that annoying man’s face from your thoughts, iron out the creases of worry on your forehead, let the vase of flowers bring back your inspiration) and work those unused muscles with the almost hedonistic pleasure and sense of accomplishment at seeing the house neat and tidy at the end of those few hours?

On that note, I really must change the bed-sheets tomorrow morning, wash the towels and buy some flowers to brighten up the living room! 😉

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One thought on “I Clean. So I am.”

Oh my.. Could you llend me some of your enthusiasm? I don’t have a single cleaning/organizing gene in my body! Surprisingly, though, while writing/ planning our my classes etc, I have everything organized very nicely in my head or I write it down. Around the house, ahem. You do see I need some of your stash of OCD cells? 😛